The Fire of Your Words Melts the Ice of Mine
by DarkPoisonousLove
Summary: Valtor can't sleep, tormented by the words he heard form Griffin more than seventeen years ago. So he decides to pay her a visit in the dungeons and prove it was all a big lie. Set after 3x10.


**A/N: This came to me while I was looking at some prompts on tumblr and of course I decided that the best time to write it would be in the middle of the night. Anyway, hope you'll enjoy! Reviews are always appreciated.**

Valtor couldn't sleep. There were words ringing in his head like a haunting echo that chased sleep away and threatened to do the same with his sanity. They'd been plaguing him ever since Griffin had betrayed him and ran off to join his enemies, leaving him only empty silence that was the perfect environment for these thoughts to thrive and spin out of control. He'd learned to block them out in Omega because they would've driven him to the brink of despair otherwise. But ever since he came to Cloud Tower, since he heard her voice again, heard his name fall from her lips, the words came flooding back again and he felt helpless against them with no means of navigating them.

He'd had enough of that. Seventeen years spent in a block of ice where he could do nothing except for witness his own mind eat away at him were more than enough. Griffin had been the reason why he'd been trapped and had all his power and agency taken away, and he'd be damned if he let her do that to him again. No, now that she was his prisoner, he could get rid of her words once and for all.

He made his way to the dungeons, the magic inside him flaring with every step he took as if he was going into battle. He willed it to stop. Griffin wasn't a threat. She hadn't been even with her magic at her disposal, and now that she was trapped, the only thing she had left were her words.

He shook off the nervous rush of energy and swiftly walked over to her cell, eager to get it over with and finally be free of her. To his surprise, she was up and running, pacing around the cell like a caged lioness even though it was the middle of the night. He hadn't expected her to be awake. He'd thought he'd have some peace and quiet to think before pulling her out of her sleep, but of course, she was awake and into full motion, foiling his plan. It was all she was good for.

She turned around and froze for a second when she saw him before her vision filled with red and she crossed her arms, a look of contempt settling on her face. "Came to cause me some more pain?" she snarled at him. "Everything you've done so far wasn't entertaining enough for you?" she moved closer, stalking him, looking for a vulnerable place to aim her words at. She was playing the victim again when her predicament wasn't even half as harsh as what he'd been subjected to. At least, she still had enough room to pace around and could open her mouth to spit her venom. His muscles had burned for days from even the smallest movements since he hadn't used them for seventeen years. He was just now starting to remember what it was like to feel like a human being instead of a doll pulled by strings. She had nothing to complain about.

"How do you love me now?" he sneered at her, ending up just as shocked by his words as she was. He'd had no intention to be so blunt but she'd pushed him, unraveling his self-control like a useless rag.

"Excuse me?" Griffin said, just barely recovering from her surprise, her tone soft as she sounded lost.

The confusion written on her face encouraged him to continue. It didn't matter that he could end up hurt as well if it meant taking her down. "I never expected you to love me," he said, ascribing the tremor in his voice to the thrill he felt when her gaze softened, filling with vulnerability. "So you didn't have to go and lie about it." He wished she'd never said it, wished he'd never fallen for it.

Her stance changed as she unfolded her arms and took a step forward, looking like the woman who'd claimed she loved him. But that just made her a fraud because that woman had never existed. She'd been just a beautiful illusion and he'd fallen for it even though it had been poorly stitched. "I didn't lie," Griffin said, the words like a thousand needles prickling at his heart.

"You joined my enemies to fight against me," Valtor raised his voice at the sudden awareness of how open he'd left himself. A block of ice surrounding him didn't sound so bad right then. But Griffin's stare would have to do.

The cold was back in her gaze now and he was almost grateful for it because it was something that couldn't reach him. "You were going to tear the whole universe apart. I couldn't just stand there and watch you do it."

He'd heard it all before, knew it to be true and didn't let it bother him. It was her weakness, not his. He'd just been the one to pay for it.

"It didn't change the way I felt, though."

Now those words concerned him. Because they were a lie. They had to be. There was no other option. Why would she tell him the truth when she was a betrayer? And yet, he was falling for them all the same.

"You watched me get turned into an icicle," he said, reminding himself just where her words had gotten him the first time, "and you're telling me that your heart was beating for me?" How ironic would that be, having in mind that his own heartbeat had slowed down to a few beats per minute as he was surrounded by the ice?

"No," Griffin shook her head. "It couldn't. It froze over."

He had to stop himself from laughing out loud at her face. What did she know about the freezing embrace of the ice? And if she had that desperate look on her face that reminded him too much of the one he wore when he remembered the years spent in the unforgiving cold, it was because she was toying with him again. Never mind that it wasn't a look one could quite fake.

He stepped closer and reached through the bars, having no trouble with overriding the spell that kept her locked up. As he offered her his hand, flames started dancing in his palm, proving that he was back in charge now. He was offering her his own Dragon Fire–anything, really, to get that look off her face–to thaw the imaginary ice that held her heart hostage. Maybe that would free him of her, too.

Griffin studied him for a moment–and he had to stop himself from mulling over what she was seeing as she looked at him–before closing the distance between them. She took his hand, her own magic extinguishing the flames before they could burn her, but, really, it was his own fault for allowing her to use it against him. He should've stayed on his side of the bars–the right side of the bars–where she couldn't reach him. Instead, he was holding her hand, the weight of it in his own so much more pleasant than the burden of the words that were spoken between them.

"It's no surprise," he spoke, breaking the magic of the moment that had taken them back to the past where the current reality wasn't standing between them. "You don't want to let the flames touch you."

"Would you let them burn you alive?" she asked in that sad tone that made him feel like a fool. It resonated so deeply with him that it had to be pretense. She couldn't possibly know how he felt.

"It would certainly be better than being trapped in an ice block," he pulled his hand out of hers, completely drained from holding it and so exhausted that even the screeching of his mothers in his ears wouldn't be able to keep him awake. He turned away, ready to go and forget that Griffin had ever existed, let alone that she'd ever had any impact on his life.

"Of course you'd say that when you possess the Dragon Fire," she spoke behind his back. She just couldn't let him expel her from his thoughts. She had to have the final word and a place in his mind since his heart was frozen and unavailable. "Flames can't burn you."

They couldn't. But her words were still burning in his mind. And it looked like that would be the case no matter how thick and cold the ice wall around his heart was. Her mere presence burned into his soul as fiercely as ever and he didn't know whether to hate her or love her for it. So he settled for the one thing he knew how to do.

With a motion of his hand, a chilling draft blew through the dungeons. It would go on until morning, making sleep impossible for the one person that was trapped there. Why should he be the only one kept awake?


End file.
